bored has left a new comment on your post "Timmy Learns To Spell. WELS Church Lady Smacks Him...":
The birth of In too eetoo feed ace and UOJ came from too many little people asking too many big questions. The simple fact that Justification comes to man by Faith, and that Faith comes to man by the means of Grace is quite easy to glean from nearly any section of the new testament.
I'm starting to think that UOJ and others, (or even trying to understand/discuss election) are ways that theologians seek to make complex thought necessary for salvation at the expense of simple belief. As intelligent as most theologians were, I guess that most were unsatisfied with leaving the conversation with belief. I'll bet every heresy came from over-thinking, as people try to make Scripture congruent with logic.
But ya know, I don't find that with Luther. I haven't sampled a wide variety of theologians, but of the ones I have read, Luther is by far the most readable by the widest audience. He is the opposite of shallow, but you find no thought puzzles and no mind-bending rhetoric that you find in others, even in his students.
Why? Because God used him to unencumber the Word. Luther was used to remind the world of the Gospel's simplicity. The UOJers fight against JBFA with the same spirit as the Romans fought Luther. To them it is blasphemous to dismantle their clever little puzzle--their logic powered canon.
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GJ - This is all so true. I also give Chemnitz and Melanchthon very high scores in being readable and relevant. Chemnitz also had Luther's sense of humor. However, no one can touch Luther in plain writing with a powerful impact.
I have had many years among academic theologians, some of them on the far extreme of intelligence and study. Nevertheless, they play the same top dog games Bored eviscerates with such skill. They play around with narrow topics that few can discuss with them, sometimes stepping in it themselves.
Stan Hauerwas is the best known theologian today. In class, looking at me, he said, "Lutherans are not very good on sanctification."
I added, "Or sanctimony."
